The Last Gangster

MGM was so underdeveloped in the gangster genre that they had to borrow Edward G. Robinson from Warner Brothers to make Edward Ludwig’s The Last Gangster, which also features a very early role for James Stewart, sculpted mustache and all. Graced by excellent performances, the film follows nasty, selfish gangster Joe Krozac (Robinson) as he gets the Al Capone treatment: conviction for tax evasion and banishment to Alcatraz. The more important story, however, involves Krozac’s marriage to a naïve, barely English-speaking immigrant named Talya (Rose Stradner) and the baby that’s born to the couple just months after Krozac’s confinement begins. As Rose pays visits to her husband and slowly learns the truth about his crimes, it becomes increasingly clear that Krozac views her not as a wife but as a babysitter, all of his attention and pride transferred to his progeny, any love he’d felt toward Talya all but evaporated. This sends Talya into the arms of the journalist (Stewart) who’s been reporting on her husband’s antics, but the romantic bliss will be shaken when Krozac is finally released from prison and comes calling. Lionel Stander plays Krozac’s number two, Curly, who will later turn the tables and torture Krozac into revealing where he hid his fortune years earlier, and Alan Baxter plays Acey Kile, a rival gangster determined to avenge his partners’ murders at Krozac’s hands. The film is both entertaining and moving, enhanced by proto-noir cinematography that plays with shadows (the final gunfight visible only in shadow form), composites (the passage of Krozac’s time in prison), and other visual stylistics that would go on to help define the cycle.